Desktop and All-in-One Arm Linux computers launched with Baikal-M processor
The last time we wrote news about Baikal Electronics, the Russian company was offering MIPS-based processors, but they've now announced that several iRU-branded desktops and one all-in-one computer had been introduced with Baikal-M octa-core Cortex-A57 processor with Mali-T628 GPU, and support for up to 32GB DDR4 RAM, up to 3TB HDD.
The computers target the Russian market, especially business to business (B2B) and business to government (B2G) customers, with the use of Astra Linux distribution that contains Russian "data protection tools" such as ViPNet SafeBoot, PAK Sobol, and others.
[...] The all-in-one version of the computer pretty much has the same features with up to 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 3TB HDD, and a 23.8-inch IPS display with Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution.
Related:
Linux-Based, MIPS-Powered Russian All-in-One PC Launched
Programming Guide for Russia's "28nm" Elbrus-8CB CPU Published
Russia to Build RISC-V Processors for Laptops: 8-core, 2 GHz, 12nm, 2025
Related Stories
Liliputing reports
Most modern desktop and notebook computers ship with Intel or AMD processors and Windows or OS X software. A few companies are positioning products with ARM-based chips as desktop computers. But the Tavolga Terminal TB-T22BT(русский [1]) is something different.
This all-in-one desktop PC has a MIPS-based processor and runs Debian 8 Linux software.
The computer is made by Russian company T-Platforms, which also offers an SF-BT1 processor module for those that want to build their own hardware.
Both devices use a Baikal-T1 processor which is a 32-bit dual-core MIPS P5600 processor. Like the computers, the chip was designed in Russia, although it's based on work from Imagination Technologies (the company behind the MIPS architecture).
The all-in-one desktop features a 21.5 inch IPS display, support for up to 8GB of DDR3-1600 memory, and up to 64GB of flash storage. It has four USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 port, Gigabit Ethernet, and a fanless case for silent operation. There's also support for smart cards.
T-Platforms is positioning the TB-T22BT as a device that can either be used as a standalone computer with support for Linux-based apps such as LibreOffice and Firefox, or as a thin client system that you can use to connect to remote machines using remote desktop software.
[1] The translation dropdown menu did not work. Google translation
Previous: Russia Plans to Dump Some American CPUs for Homegrown Technology
Russia's Elbrus 8CB Microarchitecture: 8-core VLIW on TSMC 28nm
All of the world's major superpowers have a vested interest in building their own custom silicon processors. The vital ingredient to this allows the superpower to wean itself off of US-based processors, guarantee there are no supplemental backdoors, and if needed add their own. As we have seen with China, custom chip designs, x86-based joint ventures, or Arm derivatives seem to be the order of the day. So in comes Russia, with its custom Elbrus VLIW design that seems to have its roots in SPARC.
Russia has been creating processors called Elbrus for a number of years now. For those of us outside Russia, it has mostly been a big question mark as to what is actually under the hood – these chips are built for custom servers and office PCs, often at the direction of the Russian government and its requirements. We have had glimpses of the design, thanks to documents from Russian supercomputing events, however these are a few years old now. If you are not in Russia, you are unlikely to ever get your hands on one at any rate. However, it recently came to our attention of a new programming guide listed online for the latest Elbrus-8CB processor designs.
The latest Elbrus-8CB chip, as detailed in the new online programming guide published this week, built on TSMC's 28nm, is a 333 mm2 design featuring 8 cores at 1.5 GHz. Peak throughput according to the documents states 576 GFLOPs of double precision, with the chip offering four channels of DDR4-2400, good for 68.3 GB/s. The L1 and L2 caches are private, with a 64 kB L1-D cache, a 128 kB L1-I cache, and a 512 kB L2 cache. The L3 cache is shared between the cores, at 2 MB/core for a total of 16 MB. The processor also supports 4-way server multiprocessor combinations, although it does not say on what protocol or what bandwidth.
It is a compiler focused design, much like Intel's Itanium, in that most of the optimizations happen at the compiler level. Based on compiler first designs in the past, that typically does not make for a successful product. Documents from 2015 state that a continuing goal of the Elbrus design is x86 and x86-64 binary translation with only a 20% overhead, allowing full support for x86 code as well as x86 operating systems, including Windows 7 (this may have been updated since 2015).
Previously: Russian Homegrown Elbrus-4C CPU Released
Russia To Build RISC-V Processors for Laptops: 8-core, 2 GHz, 12nm, 2025
Russian outlet Vedomosti.ru today is reporting that the conglomerate Rostec, a Russian state-backed corporation specializing in investment in technology, has penned a deal with server company Yadro and silicon design company Sintakor to develop RISC-V processors for computers, laptops, and servers. Initial reports are suggesting that Sintakor will develop a powerful enough RISC-V design to power government and education systems by 2025.
The cost of the project is reported to be around 30 billion rubles ($400m), with that the organizers of the project plan to sell 60,000 systems based around new processors containing RISC-V cores as the main processing cores. The reports state that the goal is to build an 8-core processor, running at 2 GHz, using a 12-nanometer process, which presumably means GlobalFoundries but at this point it is unclear. Out of the project funding, two-thirds will be provided by 'anchor customers' (such as Rostec and subsidiaries), while the final third will come from the federal budget. The systems these processors will go into will operate initially at Russia's Ministry of Education and Science, as well as the Ministry of Health.
Previously: Russian Homegrown Elbrus-4C CPU Released
Linux-Based, MIPS-Powered Russian All-in-One PC Launched
Programming Guide for Russia's "28nm" Elbrus-8CB CPU Published
TSMC delivers first batch of Baikal BE-M1000 CPUs based on ARM Cortex-A57 cores
Baikal Electronics confirms they received the first batch of 5000 BE-M1000 CPUs from their foundry, TSMC. These are second-generation processors based on ARM architecture.
[...] Baikal BE-M1000 is based on eight ARM Cortex A57 cores all clocked up to 1.5 GHz at TDP at 30-35W. The CPU has 4MB of L2 cache and 8MB of L3 cache. It comes with an integrated ARM Mali-T682 GPU clocked at 700 to 750 MHz.
The processor offers a performance level of Intel Core i3-7300T, which should be good enough for standard office use.
The Intel Core i3-7300T was a dual-core Kaby Lake CPU launched in 2017, with a similar TDP (35 Watts).
Previously: Desktop and All-in-One Arm Linux Computers Launched with Baikal-M Processor
Related: Russia to Build RISC-V Processors for Laptops: 8-core, 2 GHz, 12nm, 2025
BITBLAZE Titan BM15 Arm Linux laptop features Baikal-M1 processor
Russian company Prombit has unveiled the BITBLAZE Titan BM15 Arm Linux Laptop equipped with Baikal-M1 octa-core Arm Cortex-A57 processor manufactured by TSMC, up to 128GB RAM [disputed: may only be 32 GB], SSD storage, and a 15.6-inch Full HD display.
[...] There's no mention of the operating system used on the product page, but the laptop most certainly runs the same Astra Linux distribution as the Baikal M hardware launched last year with the Russian office application package, and other programs all approved by the "Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media".
However, the laptop may end up being a collector item, as Tom's Hardware reports TSMC will not manufacture chips for Russian companies due to current sanctions. But we'll have to see, as Chinese companies such as SMIC should still be able to manufacture processors on a 28nm process despite (again) more sanctions. Tom's Hardware further mentions that the laptop is expected to cost between 100,000 and 120,000 rubles (or about $1,600 – $1,930 at current exchange rates), so the price/performance ratio is less than impressive, but that may be the cost of independence. Productions samples, scheduled "earlier than November" may cost less.
Also at Notebookcheck.
Previously:
Desktop and All-in-One Arm Linux Computers Launched with Baikal-M Processor
TSMC Ships First Batch of Baikal BE-M1000 ARM CPUs
(Score: 3, Funny) by legont on Tuesday August 10 2021, @02:51PM (2 children)
The age is finally here.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday August 10 2021, @05:02PM (1 child)
Sure thing, we had the age of the Linux Desktop many times now. It's going to be this time, for sure, though.
In reality, the masses are going to go with the dumbest solution. Linux requires you to rub two neurons together, thus the masses don't adopt it. I mean, Android worked and it's based on Linux. They assume people are stupid though, so it works.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Saturday August 14 2021, @08:28PM
Perhaps it's not the case any more - difficulty I mean. A few years back I got tired of Windows issues on my wife's laptop and I gave her a Linux one. It was Dell and true it took me a day or so to set it up right even though Linux was preinstalled. Since then the only thing I do is remotely execute update command when she sleeps. Anyway, perhaps I am biased, but maintenance of a Linux system is way simpler for me. I am sure any reasonable company could do an initial install right.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday August 10 2021, @02:54PM (6 children)
leave your other arm free for... you know, whatever you want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 10 2021, @02:58PM
For make salute.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 10 2021, @03:21PM (4 children)
I leave my other ARM free for my RISC-V behavior. I'll relax and be satisfied once there is a RISC-V explosion.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 10 2021, @04:30PM (3 children)
ooh you really did get linux all over your desktop /.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 10 2021, @04:45PM (2 children)
It's not any more difficult to get Linux all over my desktop than when I get Linux all over my keyboard and laptop computer.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 10 2021, @04:49PM (1 child)
Your keyboard runs linux? A bit overkill, isn't it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @08:44AM
Raspberry Pi 400, not at all.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday August 10 2021, @03:01PM (3 children)
The original Baikal processors were custom MIPS-based devices, but these are using "Cortex-A57 processor with Mali-T628 GPU". Or, roughly, a Raspberry Pi. Or perhaps a slightly older-generation cellphone.
(OK, since it's desktop-oriented it's got GigE and PCIe while a cellphone won't, but that's just because it's not really needed on a phone).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 10 2021, @03:22PM (2 children)
Based on the CNX comments and the specs, it should compare well to the Pi 4. Probably not in price unless you buy it stolen from a Russian government office.
It can take 32 GB of RAM, an external GPU, and the Mali-T628 [notebookcheck.net] should be better than Pi 4's GPU in the first place.
Looks like we found Mojibake's next system.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @05:18PM (1 child)
External GPU?
I'm guessing that just means it can use a PCIE GPU via a slot on the board rather than something silly like the eGPU setups some have done on laptops.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 12 2021, @12:07AM
I should have said discrete GPU.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-RTX-On-ARM [phoronix.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday August 10 2021, @06:37PM (4 children)
Considering how antagonistic Russia is towards end-to-end encryption, how seriously am I supposed to take Russian based computers and software? Albeit, probably a little less safer than Intel with the management bullshit.
I'm going to be extremely skeptical that any Russia based anything is going to deliver true privacy and data protection without backdoors of some kind.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Informative) by number11 on Tuesday August 10 2021, @08:24PM (2 children)
Going by the article comments, it can run other distros as well. Astra Linux is the distro approved for Russian govt use, so a logical one for the intended market. Commenter says ALT Linux is available now, and that you can build your own firmware. Probably other distros will become available.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @08:16AM (1 child)
It looks like you can just use Debian, since Astra Linux is based on that.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday August 14 2021, @08:31PM
Astra is just hardened Debian I believe. One could simply take plain Debian distro, install all the tools and change configs.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 11 2021, @07:28AM
News is that systemd is going to be implemented on Astra Linux.
Next up is Red Flag Linux and then my work for the CIA is complete.
Kind regards,
L.P.